The House of Hades (Heroes of Olympus Book 4)

reinvigorated him, but not
this
water. Controlling it must have taken every bit of his strength. The whirlpool began to dissipate. Annabeth hooked one arm around his waist and struggled across the current. The river worked against her: thousands of weeping voices whispering in her ears, getting inside her brain.
    Life is despair
, they said.
Everything is pointless, and then you die.
    ‘Pointless,’ Percy murmured. His teeth chattered from the cold. He stopped swimming and began to sink.
    ‘Percy!’ she shrieked. ‘The river is messing with your mind. It’s the Cocytus – the River of Lamentation. It’s made of pure misery!’
    ‘Misery,’ he agreed.
    ‘Fight it!’
    She kicked and struggled, trying to keep both of them afloat. Another cosmic joke for Gaia to laugh at:
Annabeth dies trying to keep her boyfriend, the son of Poseidon, from drowning.
    Not going to happen, you hag, Annabeth thought.
    She hugged Percy tighter and kissed him. ‘Tell me about New Rome,’ she demanded. ‘What were your plans for us?’
    ‘New Rome … For us …’
    ‘Yeah, Seaweed Brain. You said we could have a future there! Tell me!’
    Annabeth had never wanted to leave Camp Half-Blood. It was the only real home she’d ever known. But days ago, on the
Argo II
, Percy had told her that he imagined a future for the two of them among the Roman demigods. In their city of New Rome, veterans of the legion could settle down safely, go to college, get married, even have kids.
    ‘Architecture,’ Percy murmured. The fog started to clear from his eyes. ‘Thought you’d like the houses, the parks. There’s one street with all these cool fountains.’
    Annabeth started making progress against the current. Her limbs felt like bags of wet sand, but Percy was helping her now. She could see the dark line of the shore about a stone’s throw away.
    ‘College,’ she gasped. ‘Could we go there together?’
    ‘Y-yeah,’ he agreed, a little more confidently.
    ‘What would you study, Percy?’
    ‘Dunno,’ he admitted.
    ‘Marine science,’ she suggested. ‘Oceanography?’
    ‘Surfing?’ he asked.
    She laughed, and the sound sent a shock wave through the water. The wailing faded to background noise. Annabeth wondered if anyone had ever laughed in Tartarus before – just a pure, simple laugh of pleasure. She doubted it.
    She used the last of her strength to reach the riverbank. Her feet dug into the sandy bottom. She and Percy hauled themselves ashore, shivering and gasping, and collapsed on the dark sand.
    Annabeth wanted to curl up next to Percy and go to sleep. She wanted to shut her eyes, hope all of this was just a bad dream and wake up to find herself back on the
Argo II
, safe with her friends (well … as safe as a demigod can ever be).
    But, no. They were really in Tartarus. At their feet, the River Cocytus roared past, a flood of liquid wretchedness. The sulphurous air stung Annabeth’s lungs and prickled her skin. When she looked at her arms, she saw they were already covered with an angry rash. She tried to sit up and gasped in pain.
    The beach wasn’t sand. They were sitting on a field of jagged black-glass chips, some of which were now embedded in Annabeth’s palms.
    So the air was acid. The water was misery. The ground was broken glass. Everything here was designed to hurt and kill. Annabeth took a rattling breath and wondered if the voices in the Cocytus were right. Maybe fighting for survival was pointless. They would be dead within the hour.
    Next to her, Percy coughed. ‘This place smells like my ex-stepfather.’
    Annabeth managed a weak smile. She’d never met Smelly Gabe, but she’d heard enough stories. She loved Percy for trying to lift her spirits.
    If she’d fallen into Tartarus by herself, Annabeth thought, she would have been doomed. After all she’d been through beneath Rome, finding the Athena Parthenos, this was simply too much. She would’ve curled up and cried until she became another ghost, melting into the Cocytus.
    But she wasn’t alone. She had Percy. And that meant she couldn’t give up.
    She forced herself to take stock. Her foot was still wrapped in its makeshift cast of board and bubble wrap, still tangled in cobwebs. But when she moved it, it didn’t hurt. The ambrosia she’d eaten in the tunnels under Rome must have finally mended her bones.
    Her backpack was gone – lost during the fall, or maybe washed away in the river. She hated losing Daedalus ’s laptop, with